Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

4. Methodology
Following on from chapters 2 and 3 I will now turn to the empirical part of the study.
I will look at how cancer patients in rehabilitation experienced BMGIM therapy and
how it influenced their rehabilitation process. Different types of data were collected,
and different research strategies were used to analyze data.
The study is an investigation of the following research question:
What is the influence of ten individual BMGIM sessions on mood and quality of life
in cancer survivors? The investigation addresses the following subquestions:
1) Can ten BMGIM sessions improve the mood of the participants?
2) Can ten BMGIM sessions improve the quality of life of the participants?
3) Can music and imagery help the participants in their rehabilitation process?
4) What is the experience of the participants of BMGIM and its effects on mood
and quality of life in the rehabilitation process?
5) What is the specific nature of the imagery or image configuration of cancer
survivors in GIM?
6) How does the imagery develop and/or is re-configured during GIM therapy?
7) What elements are there that describe the relationship between the music and
the imagery transformations?
Based on the nature of the research questions, this study employs multiple methods,
and includes both fixed and flexible design (Robson 2002). It applies quantitative as
well as qualitative research methods, which will be described in sections 4.4 to 4.6.
Parallel to this the results will be reported in separate chapters (5 to 8). In 4.1 I will
discuss the epistemological and practical problems and implications of using multiple
methods. However first I want to present my basic stance.
4.1 Multiple methodology – an epistemological challenge
During the last two decades a discussion has been going on about options and
appropriateness of combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies (in music
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